Part 1 — CHAPTER VI. UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE—OCTOBER 1850 TO JANUARY 1854—Æt. 19-22.

BEFORE placing his son at Cambridge Mr. Clerk Maxwell had, as was usual with him, consulted various persons, including Professor James Forbes and Professor Kelland of Edinburgh, Professors Thomson and Blackburn of Glasgow, and Charles Mackenzie, afterwards Bishop of Natal, then a Lecturer of Caius College, Cambridge.[136] Forbes strongly advised Trinity, and offered an introduction to Whewell; but after various reasons urged for Trinity, Caius, and Peterhouse, the decision was in favour of Peterhouse.

Maxwell’s first impression of college life, like that of some other clever freshmen, was not one of unalloyed satisfaction. He was transplanted from the rural solitudes of Galloway into the midst of a society which was of curious interest to him, but did not make him feel immediately at home. He found himself amongst the freshmen spelling out Euclid again, and again “monotonously parsing” a Greek play. He had brought with him his scraps of gelatine, gutta-percha, and unannealed glass, his bits of magnetised steel, and other objects, which were apt to appear to the uninitiated as “matter in the wrong place.” And this in the home of science! Nor were his experiments facilitated by the casual “dropping-in” of the average undergraduate.

His boyish spirits and his social temper, together with the novelty of the scene, and a deep-rooted presentiment of the possibilities of Cambridge, no doubt made even his first term a happy one. But there was an undercurrent of restlessness and misgiving. And this made him lend a readier ear to the advice which was pressed upon him from various quarters, that he should migrate to Trinity.

The ground of this advice was simply that from the large proportion of high wranglers at Peterhouse, and the smallness of the foundation, the chances of a fellowship there for a mathematical man were less than at Trinity College. And this was the reason which, together with his son’s evident wish, most weighed with Mr. Clerk Maxwell. He was also struck with the fact that “Porter senior,” who about this time became Maxwell’s private tutor, recommended the change, although he himself belonged to Peterhouse. But the friend whose counsel in this whole matter was most prized both by father and son was Charles Mackenzie, of whom one who was his colleague at Caius has said that he was “the best of all men whom he had known.”

On Maxwell’s own mind, it need hardly be said, the prospect of a fellowship had little or no influence, except in so far as lie desired to please his father. His own prime motive was undoubtedly the hope, in which he was not disappointed, that the larger College would afford him ampler opportunities for self-improvement.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

St. Peter's College, 18th Oct. 1850.

Æt. 19.

You tell me to lay my account with being dull at first, and to condole with Robert, whereas there is continual merriment (stop it!), and Robert is not settled yet. As for secrets of nature, they are not for Freshmen even to think of. Now for personal journal, with observations on the manners and customs, etc....

We spent the night at Peterborough, and saw the Cathedral in the morning. Very grand outside. West end a fine subject for calotype seen right perpendicular, and the point P for a picture made by hand, fine weeping willows, etc.

Proceeded to Ely with some Gloucester people we met in the Cathedral, and inspected Ely Cathedral like regular Archbishops. Went up the steeple to see land like sea. Heard all the people talking of the enclosure of the Wash to be called Victoria county, and to be worth 30s. per acre. Got to Cambridge, and called on Mr. Fuller,[137] after getting room for my father (as the Bull was full) in a lodgement, Got rooms in College, sitting and bed, six paces from Chapel, and good light. Had Tait to tea. Next day breakfast with Tait and Steele (of Glasgow and Ireland, and a future wrangler), and so on in detail.

M'Kenzie came up to-day. He took us to most of the colleges. Saw Newton and Bacon in Trin. Chapel. At Hall there was a proclamation to this effect nearly:— Whereas (on the — day of —, 1850), application was made to the Syndicate (or Senate or something), by William Cooke, for leave to erect his equestrian establishment; and whereas, considering the immoral nature of said establishment, it was unanimously resolved to refuse leave. And whereas, notwithstanding said refusal, said W. C. did publicly notify his intention of putting up said estab.: Be it known, etc., that it is resolved and enacted, that if any undergraduate or graduate in statu pupillari, or tutor, or fellow, or master, etc., he caught at said establishment, he will be punished with expulsion, rustication, Castigation, or such other punishment as the case may require.[138]

So there is to be a quarrel between the Town and University about this, and also about whether they are to pay poor rate, as the University is supposed to be extra-parochial.

Prelim, exam, to-morrow at 9. Peter can’t afford to pluck at it. C. H. Robertson has past his at Trin. He is in Ling’s lodgings. He wants to keep quiet and to read by himself, and have only old acquaintances.

To a Friend suffering from Depression.

Hope to write you more again; but to conclude and get to bed: You are always talking of your withering up, awful change, etc. How I have not a sermon on this subject by me, neither will I deliver an extempore one; but though I do not pretend to have examined you in all the branches, yet I would take the liberty to say that with respect to intellect, as the Laird of Dumbiedykes said, “It’ll be growing when ye’re sleeping,”—that is to say, what you take for corruption and decay is only stratification.[139]

The letters written to his father by Maxwell while an undergraduate at Cambridge have unfortunately disappeared. But something of their tenor may be gathered from Mr. Maxwell's letters to his son. The following extracts are related to his first term at college:—

From his Father.

Glenlair, 22d October 1850.

Did Prof. Thomson catch you, and view your “dirt;”[140] and if so, what thought he thereof?

Glenlair, 30th October 1850.

Who is the lecturer in the Greek play? Did I see him while at Cambridge? I am sorry to hear the Greek class is a bad one, for you would have got more good of it if [it] had required you to work to maintain a good position in it; but you should study your part well, for it is not comparative excellence, but absolute, that will be of use in University competitions.

Glenlair, 8th Novr. 1850.

You say your lecturer in Greek is good, so I hope you profit accordingly, altho’ your classfellows are not great scholars....

... It would be necessary to take care there are no mouse-holes. A very hungry Chapel mouse might come through. There had been an entrance that way to the Chapel. It would be to the organ loft.

Have you called on Profs. Sedgwick at Trin., and Stokes at Pembroke? If not, you should do both. Stokes will be most in your way if he takes you in hand at all Sedgwick is also a great Don in his line, and if you were entered in Geology would be a most valuable acquaintance; and, besides, not going to him would be uncivil, both to him and to the Alisons, after their having arranged the introduction. Provide yourself with cards.

It might be worth your while to stop at York to view it.

Glenlair, 13th Novr. 1850.

I am glad you have communication with Stokes and Mackenzie.

Is all Cambridge up in arms against the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman? I cannot enter into all the fuss about it. If there is any law to hinder people calling themselves Cardinals or Archbishops, let it be acted on; but if there is no such law, let the assumption of empty titles ... be laughed at.

Men of genius are often represented by themselves and others as owing little or nothing to their education. This certainly was not true of Maxwell, whose receptivity was only less than his originality. He laid a strong retentive grasp on all that was given to him, and set his own stamp on it in return. Both what was good and what was defective in his early training had left a lasting impress on him, and it was by no means an indifferent circumstance that, in the maturity of his powers, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at an advanced period of the long mastership of Whewell.

I well remember my surprise, not unmixed with needless pangs of boyish jealousy, on finding in the following summer that Maxwell had all at once made a troop of friends. Their names were always on his lips, and he loved by some vivid trait to indicate the character of each. His acquaintance was multifarious, and he had many pithy anecdotes to relate of other than his own particular associates.

He was at first in lodgings in King's Parade, where he “chummed” with an old Edinburgh schoolfellow, Charles Hope Robertson.[141] It appears that the college lectures in mathematics were still felt to be rather elementary, but that he worked harder problems (some were of his own invention) with Tait and with Porter of Peterhouse, who was still his private tutor. A certain amount of classical reading was required of freshmen, and he still took his classics seriously. There is an allusion to the Ajax in one of his letters, and he makes critical remarks upon Demosthenes. There was also a lecture on Tacitus by a “deep, half-sentence lecturer.” Either now or in the following year—at some time before the little-go examination of March 1852—he translated the choral odes of the Ajax into rhymed English verse,[142] and made a rough caricature of Ajax slaughtering the oxen.

His chief outdoor amusements were walking, bathing, and sculling. He was upset in his “funny” in May 1851—a trifling accident to so expert a swimmer. “But,” writes a contemporary Cantab, “he richly deserved it. For he tried to take off his jersey after shipping’ his oars. The oscillations of the funny became rapidly more extensive, in spite of his violent efforts at equilibrium.” For winter recreation he ordered a pair of basket-sticks to be made at home.

He tried some odd experiments in the arrangement of his hours of work and sleep. But his father disapproved of such vagaries, and they were not continued long—although not entirely abandoned even when he had rooms in college. The authority just quoted says, “From 2 to 2.30 A.M. he took exercise by running along the upper corridor, down the stairs, along the lower corridor, then up the stairs, and so on, until the inhabitants of the rooms along his track got up and lay perdus behind their sporting-doors to have shots at him with boots, hair-brushes, etc., as he passed.”

Intellectual interests of all kinds surrounded him, and he soon began to lend new life to all. There were also in the Cambridge of this period religious influences of a remarkable kind. Apart from the Simeonite tradition which still lingered, there was a class of younger men, who, while faithful to a pious evangelical upbringing, had open and inquiring minds. The names of Henry and Frank Mackenzie of Trinity, the one senior to Maxwell, the other junior to him,[143] may be mentioned in particular. To such men, and to many others, the preaching of Harvey Goodwin, now Bishop of Carlisle, but at that time chiefly known as a mathematical authority, was full of interest.

1851.

Two events of some importance to the scientific world were the introduction of Foucault’s pendulum experiment for proving the rotation of the earth, and the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Maxwell saw the pendulum experiment in Mr. Thacker’s (the tutor’s) rooms at Trinity in April or May, and wrote an account of it to his father, which has been lost.

The “viewing” of the Crystal Palace, although a thing to be done, was made less exciting than it would otherwise have been by the constant habit of visiting all manufactures according to opportunity. Maxwell disclaims all “fanaticism” on the subject, and his father writes that while a fortnight would be required to see it properly, a great deal of it must be already familiar to them both.

Æt. 20.

In the October term he joined the “team” of Hopkins, the great private tutor, as a fifteenth pupil.

He also became a regular attendant of Professor Stokes's lectures, and commenced his lifelong friendship with one whose original investigations were so closely akin to some of his own.

Professor Stokes's kindness was greatly valued even in those old days, and much more afterwards. The young man's happiness in all ways at Trinity is manifested by the reappearance of the poetic vein, about the time of the junior sophs' examination, in the Lay of King Numa, dated 13th December 1851.

To this sketch of his first year at college there must be appended one more reminiscence of Glenlair. We met there in the autumn of that year, and I remember that either then or in the previous year, he put into my hands Carlyle's translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, remarking that it was a book to be read with discretion.

In the autumn of 1850 the neighbouring estate of Upper Corsock had been let to a shooting-party,[144] one of whom remarked to me what a pity it was that young Mr. Clerk Maxwell was “so little suited for a country life.” I clearly recollect his look of exulting mirth when this was repeated to him. His disinclination to field sports was certainly not due to any lack of activity, nor even to his shortsightedness, which for other purposes was easily overcome, but simply to his love for animals. The moral of Wordsworth's Hart-Leap Well was not so much a principle as an instinct with him.[145] I remember his once speaking to me on the subject of vivisection. He did not condemn its use, supposing the method could be shown to be fruitful, which at that time he doubted, but—“Couldn't do it, you know,” he added, with a sensitive wistful look not easy to forget. This is all I ever heard him say on the subject.

Letters, 1851.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

11th March 1851.

Lings, King’s Parade, Cambridge.

1851. Æt. 19.

... Have you read Soph. Ajax, or would you like to do it then?[146]

I have been trying an experiment of sleeping after hall. Last Friday I went to bed from 5 to 9.30, and read very hard from 10 to 2, and slept again from 2.30 to 7.

I intend some time to try for a week together sleeping from 5 to 1, and reading the rest of the morning. This is practical scepticism with respect to early rising.

An Oxford man is reported to have complained of the lateness of morning chapel; he could not sit up for it. I will have the most of my reading over by that time....

Demosthenes goes on. I begin to see what may be written in prose, and how ill it may be translated.

It is a , so there is less declamation and more demonstration; but the arguments, small at first, are added as they proceed, and never left behind, so by oft repetition they seem stronger than they are.

Last night I searched for difficult problems to puzzle Steele and Porter junior with. Here are some much more mild, which we freshmen get....

It is twelve o’clock, and I have to do Demosthenes to-morrow before breakfast. This implies Chapel, therefore bed, therefore I shut up.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 6th March 1851.

Simpson rages at present in the Electro-biology. Dr. Alison is very wroth about it. He says he has known two cases of nervous people whose minds were quite disordered by it. I hope it is not in fashion at Cambridge, and at any rate that you do not meddle with it. If it does anything, it is more likely to be harm than good; and if harm ensue, the evil might be irreparable, so let me hear that you have dismissed it; you have plenty better things in hand where you are.[147]

Glenlair, 29th April 1851.

Explain the pendulum experiment to me. You used often to speak of the retardation of the Rotation of the Earth by the friction of the tides.

What is the Phosphate of Lime theory of mental progress?

Glenlair, 18th May 1851.

Do you like the Trig, lectures A?[148] Tacitus is not new to you. His style must be congenial to a deep, half-sentence lecturer.

Were you carrying your watch when you were upset in your funny? and if so, how did it agree with the douking?[149]

I shall be glad to hear about the Pendulum. Who is Thacker, who asked you to his rooms to see it?

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Cambridge, 9th June 1851.

I find I owe you one letter this term. I intended to write three days ago, but I am now refreshed by classical papers, and disburdened of half the subjects of examination.

On Friday we had Euclid, on Saturday Greek,—cram on both subjects; to-day Ajax and Tacitus translations. I did no composition, but did various readings, strongly preferring certain of them for obvious reasons.

I find that 4 hours Euclid is worse than 2 3-hour papers of cram, though I sent up much more cram than Euclid. This of itself shows that disburdening cram is not like grinding out Mathematics. M—— in the Plato cram, writing a comparison of Cynics and Platonists, said that Platonism was a real live thing, but Cynicism was sleepy, and that even in its greatest ornament, Diogenes, the view of the universe was contracted to a front look-out from a wash-tub, and the summum honum reduced to sunning one’s self with eyes shut and buttons open. This was to let off his jaw on first setting down, but he let it in among his papers, and could not get it out again.

Excuse my square sentences. I have spent my curves on Tacitus, and I must now proceed to Trig. Write.—Yrs.

To the Same.

8 King’s Parade, 9th Nov. 1851.

Æt. 20.

I began a letter last week, but stopped short for want of matter. I will not send you the abortion. Facts are very scarce here. There are little stories of great men for minute philosophers. Sound intelligence from Newmarket for those that put their trust in horses, and Calendristic lore for the votaries of the Senate-house. Man requires more. He finds and innutritious, Greek and Latin indigestible, and undergrads, nauseous. He starves while being crammed. He wants man's meat, not college pudding. Is truth nowhere but in Mathematics? Is Beauty developed only in men’s elegant words, or Right in Whewell's Morality? Must Nature as well as Revelation be examined through canonical spectacles by the dark-lantern of Tradition, and measured out by the learned to the unlearned, all second-hand. I might go on thus. Now do not rashly say that I am disgusted with Cambridge and meditating a retreat. On the contrary, I am so engrossed with shoppy things that I have no time to write to you. I am also persuaded that the study of and is to men an essential preparation for the intelligent study of the material universe. That the idea of Beauty is propagated by communication, and that in order thereto human language must be studied, and that Whewell’s Morality is worth reading, if only to see that there may be such a thing as a system of Ethics.

That few will grind up these subjects without the help of rules, the awe of authority, and a continued abstinence from unripe realities, etc.

I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.”

That for this end to every man has been given a progressively increasing power of communication with other creatures. That with his powers his susceptibilities increase.

That happiness is indissolubly connected with the full exercise of these powers in their intended direction. That Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge. That the translation from the one course to the other is essentially miraculous, while the progress is natural. But the subject is too high. I will not, however, stop short, but proceed to Intellectual Pursuits.

It is natural to suppose that the soul, if not clothed with a body, and so put in relation with the creatures, would run on in an unprogressive circle of barren meditation. In order to advance, the soul must converse with things external to itself.

In every branch of knowledge the progress is proportional to the amount of facts on which to build, and therefore to the facility of obtaining data. In the Mathematics this is easy. Do you want a quantity? Take ; there it is!—got without trouble, and as good a quantity as one would wish to have. And so in other sciences,—the more abstract the subject, the better it is known. Space, time, and force come first in certainty. These are the subjects in Mechanics.

Then the active powers, Light, Heat, Electricity, etc. = Physics.

Then the differences and relations of Matter = Chemistry, and so on.

Here the order of advancement is just that of abstractedness and inapplicability to the actual. What poor blind things we Maths, think ourselves! But see the Chemists! Chemistry is a pack of cards, which the labour of hundreds is slowly arranging; and one or two tricks,—faint imitations of Nature,—have been played. Yet Chemistry is far before all the Natural History sciences; all these before Medicine; Medicine before Metaphysics, Law, and Ethics; and these I think before Pneumatology and Theology.

Now each of these makes up in interest what it wants in advancement.

There is no doubt that of all earthly creatures Man is the most important to us, yet we know less of him than any other. His history is more interesting than natural history; but nat. history, though obscure, is much more intelligible than man’s history, which is a tale half told, and which, even when this world’s course is run, and when, as some think, man may compare notes with other rational beings, will still be a great mystery, of which the beginning and the end are all that can be known to us while the intermediate parts are perpetually filled up.

So now pray excuse me if I think that the more grovelling and materialistic sciences of matter are not to be despised in comparison with the lofty studies of Minds and Spirits. Our own and our neighbours’ minds are known but very imperfectly, and no new facts will be found till we come in contact with some minds other than human to elicit them by counterposition. But of this more anon.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 3d Novr. 1851.

How do you like and how do you profit by Hopkins’ mode of driving? He should get one more pupil, and drive 16 in hand like Batty or Cook.

Glenlair, 18th Novr. 1851.

You seem to have great gaieties with College Parties with Scientific Dons. Do you take notes of Stokes’ experiments on the bands of the Spectrum? Will they be suitable for repetition in the garret of the old House?[150]

The clearing away a bank of weeds was a sly trick of the Trinity 4-oar, and I think Peterhouse and Sidney justified in protesting.[151] What tribunal is there to settle such matters?

I copied from your letters plan and section and elevation of the Baskets for single stick, and committed the same to the Davie.[152]

In the spring of 1852 he got rooms in college (Letter G, Old Court, south Attics), succeeding to his friend Blakiston, and passed his Little-go. In April of the same year he gained his scholarship, and was now launched without further necessary distraction on the long pull of preparation for the Tripos under Hopkins. But his energies were by no means absorbed in this continuous “grind.” He contributed various papers to the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal, did not confine himself to mathematics in the May examination, and in November, besides writing the comic Vision of a University, of Pedantry, and of Philosophy, made elaborate preparation for a College declamation, “the Scottish Covenanters” being the subject characteristically chosen by him.

In June he had paid a short visit to Oxford, and made a trip to Lowestoft with P. G. Tait, before settling at Cambridge (to read and bathe) for the vacation term.

Æt. 21.

Living in college and dining at the scholars' table, he naturally became more intimate with the other scholars, and he appears especially to have sought contact with classical men. To the names of Cracroft, Whitt, and Blakiston, amongst his newer friends are now added in his correspondence those of “Droop the ingenuous,” Gedge, Howard Elphinstone, Isaac Taylor, Maclennan,[153] and Vaughan Hawkins.

The idea of self-improvement in society had taken a firm hold of him, and he was conscious of the difficulty of guiding himself amongst so many cross influences. He knew that he was involuntarily different with different men, and there are curious traces in his correspondence of the struggle to make the highest use of social circumstances. Those who saw him about this time after an interval were struck by a marked change in his countenance, which, as compared with the Edinburgh days, had very distinctly gained in manliness and gravity, and showed a certain massiveness in its proportions which they had not previously noticed. His dark brown eye seemed to have deepened, some parts of the iris being almost black. A slight contraction of the chest, and a stature which, although above the average, was not tall enough to carry off the weight of his brow, made him less handsome standing than sitting. But his presence had by this time fully acquired the unspeakable charm for all who knew him, which made him insensibly become the centre of any circle, whether large or small, consisting of his friends or kindred. His hair and incipient beard were raven black, with a crisp strength in each particular hair, that gave him more the look of a Nazarite than of a nineteenth century youth. His dress was plain and neat, only remarkable for the absence of everything adventitious (starch, loose collars, studs, etc.), and an “æsthetic” taste might have perceived in its sober hues the effect of his marvellous eye for harmony of colour.[154]

The impression he made on older persons with whom he was less intimate may be gathered from the remarks of Dean Ramsay in a note to Miss Cay:—

I had great pleasure in seeing your nephew, young Clerk Maxwell. He is shrewd and cautious. He seems to like Cambridge, and I doubt not will distinguish himself. He is sparing in his words, but what he says is to the point.

The following contribution from the Rev. Charles Hope Robertson, the Rector of Smeeth (above, p. 152), throws light on more than one aspect of his life at this period:—

I was at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the same years as Clerk Maxwell, and for some time had lodgings in the same house. This, as well as knowing him before in Edinburgh, led to our frequently meeting.

He was of a very kindly disposition (under a blunt exterior), of which I can give an example. I had hurt my eyes a good deal with experiments on light, while working up for a course of Professor Forbes’s lectures at Edinburgh College, and for a good part of my undergraduate course was able to use them very little. He used to find me sitting in my rooms with closed eyes, unable to prepare for next day’s lectures, and often gave up an hour of his recreation time, to read out to me some of the book-work I wanted to get over. This infirmity prevented my reading for more than a moderate degree in mathematical honours; but I should have been still worse off if he had not thus been “eyes to the blind” for me.

He had an innate reverence for sacred things, which I do not think was ever much disturbed by the scepticism

fashionable among shallow scientific men. As my main object in coming to Cambridge was to prepare for holy orders, I had more interest in theological subjects than any others. He knew this, and would refer to me points of difficulty for our mutual consideration till we next met. The result was useful to us both. On one occasion an attack on the Mosaic history having perplexed him, he was glad of an idea that occurred to me, that the account of God’s driving out the heathen by “sending the hornet” before the Israelites, was not an idea likely to occur in a book of human origin, where a leader would rather be apt to magnify than to diminish his own and his people’s prowess. This exactly suited the sceptical state of some friend he had been conversing with. On another occasion he hit on a very beautiful mathematical illustration of St. Paul’s closing view of his career, in 2 Tim. iv. 6-8; “St. Paul was looking backward, forward, and downwards—so the resultant was upwards.”

As an original experimenter he was most ingenious in contriving out of simple means apparatus for delicate experiments. I have to this day some crystals for showing polarised light, which he gave me, cut and polished by most simple rubbing, mounted with cardboard and sealing-wax.

His Essay on the Rings of Saturn,—showing how mechanical principles required that these bodies were not solid, but formed by multitudes of small bodies revolving round Saturn, in bands of orbits,—has received abundant confirmation from recent observation with large telescopes. His own simple experiments with corks and rings suggested the idea.

But while so ingenious himself, he had great difficulty in imparting his ideas to others; consequently was not so clear a lecturer or writer as might have been expected. It was probably this that prevented his being senior wrangler of his year.

I may mention that though not joining in the ordinary games of young fellows, such as cricket and rowing, he was very active; and I have seen him in bathing take a running header from the bank, turning a complete somersault before touching the water.[155]

If shortly described, he might be said to combine a grand intellect with childlike simplicity of trust. He was too deep a thinker to be sceptical, but too well read not to feel for others’ difficulties. All his experiments led him to greater reverence for the Great First Cause, heartily agreeing with Young’s Night Thoughts, “An undevout astronomer is mad.”

In the course of the winter he was elected a member of the Select Essay Club, the crême de la crême of Cambridge intellects, familiarly known (because limited to the number twelve) as “the Apostles.” His contributions to this famous association still remain,[156] and present a curious reflection of the contemplative activities of his mind, which is far indeed from being engrossed with mere mathematics, but is rather, in the language of Plato, “taking a survey of the universe of things,” παλσαν πάντων φύσιν έρευνωμένη τών όντων έκάστου όλου. Yet amidst this speculative ardour, and even wildness, we trace the persistence of certain root-ideas, and are often reminded of his intention (expressed with curious self-directed irony in 1850), “to read Kant’s Kritik with a determination to make it agree with Sir William Hamilton.”[157]

His coming of age, June 13, 1852, had been celebrated with a few quiet words in his father’s letter of June 12, graced with the unusual addition of a Scripture text—“I trust you will be as discreet when Major as you have been while Minor (Prov. X. [158]).”

1853.

The six months from December 1852 to June 1853 were a time of great and varied mental activity. When the Tripos work became most exacting, he seemed to have the most spare energy. No part of the rich mental life of Trinity failed to touch and stimulate him—from the Moral Philosophy of the Master, to undergraduate discourses upon whist and chess. When most burdened with analytical book-work, he yearned the more deeply after comprehensive views of Nature and Life, and found refreshment in metaphysical discussion, and occasionally in theological controversy. Even the “occult” sciences, in the contemporary shapes of electro-biology and table-turning, had their share of ironical attention.

His relations with the dons, “scientific” and otherwise, whatever may have been their first impression of him,[159] were, for the most part, smooth, but a humorous passage of arms between him and the Senior Dean was long remembered in Trinity. The lines to J. A. Frere, although somewhat personal, are too well known to be omitted from his collected poems, and anything in them which might give offence at the time is more than redeemed by the large humanity of the concluding stanza. The following letter, addressed (but perhaps not sent) to the same personage, throws an amusing light on the circumstances under which the parody of “John Anderson” was written:—

To the Rev. John Alexander Frere.

Trin. Coll., 26th Feb. 1853.

Dear Sir—Looking back on the past week I find I have kept only seven chapels. I have no excuse to offer. The reason, however, of the deficiency is this. Unaware that a Saint’s Day would occur in the course of the week I parted with my surplice on Monday in order to have it washed. I was thus prevented from appearing in chapel on the evenings of Wednesday and Thursday, as otherwise I would have done. I might even after this have completed the requisite number; but, unfortunately, reading till a late hour on Friday night I found myself unable to attend chapel on Saturday morning.

I can but hope that more forethought on my part may prevent the recurrence of such accidents.

I have also to acknowledge the receipt of a small paper from you relative to the observance of Sunday. I have read it, and will keep it in mind.

Trusting that my past and future regularity may atone for my present negligence, I remain, yours sincerely,

J. C. Maxwell.

Rev. J. A. Frere.

Æt. 21.

It was while staying up at Easter in the spring of 1853, and working “at high pressure,” that his longing for the untrammelled and reverent investigation of Nature’s secrets found rhythmical expression in the most serious of his poems, the “Student’s Evening Hymn,” in which religious and philosophical aspirations are combined. Thus it was always with him; when most plunged in the minute investigation either of phenomena or of abstract ideas, he was most eager to rebound towards the contemplation of the whole of things, and that which gives unity to the whole. Yet no mind could be more averse from “viewiness,” or more determined to bring every statement to the test of fact.

The brief remainder of that Easter vacation was spent at Birmingham with his friend Johnson Gedge, a scholar of Trinity, whose father was the headmaster of King Edward's School. The exactions of Trinity and Hopkins had only left him a few days of holiday, and these were passed in the manner already mentioned,[160] in viewing the manufactures of Birmingham. Mr. Clerk Maxwell's own delight in such things prevented him from realising how laborious a programme he had suggested for the interval between two long spells of severe head-work. Yet in the midst of it Maxwell seems to have found time to contribute an elaborate piece of humorous correspondence to the King Edward's School Chronicle.

When working hardest he was never a recluse, nor was he ever more sociable than in his third year at college. He seems to have had some difficulty even in avoiding supper parties, and one of his most brilliant metaphysical jeux d' esprit purports to be a mode of escaping from them. To the names already mentioned as amongst his intimate friends, those of Farrar[161] and Butler[162] are now added. Besides the metaphysical discussions, there were Shakespeare readings, of which he was an auditor sometimes, if not an actor in them.

Whilst speaking of these side-sparks from his anvil, it is right to keep in view the loyal and trustful spirit in which he did his regularly-appointed work. His words on this subject in one of the letters to Miss Cay, which will be given presently, are well worthy of separate quotation here:—

“Trin. Coll., 7th June 1853.

“If any one asks how I am getting on in Mathematics, say that I am busy arranging everything, so as to be able to express all distinctly, so that examiners may be satisfied now, and pupils edified hereafter. It is pleasant work, and very strengthening, but not nearly finished.”

As became his kindliness, he was still mindful of the freshmen. Amongst these, Alexander Robertson, now Sheriff of Forfarshire, the brother of Charles, and Frank Mackenzie, were Scotsmen and compatriots. Another junior with whom he became still more intimate was “Freshman Tayler,”[163] so called, though now a junior Soph., in contradistinction to Isaac Taylor. Like Frank Mackenzie and others who have been mentioned, Freshman Tayler was of pious evangelical antecedents. Maxwell's own thoughts at this time, as has been seen, were taking a more decidedly religious colour, and this side also of his rich and deep nature received a fresh impulse in this critical year.

1853. Æt. 22.

He had been persuaded to spend the short interval between the summer and vacation terms with the Rev. C. B. Tayler, rector of Otley, in Suffolk, who had been touched with Maxwell’s kindness to his nephew. Here he found himself for the first time in the midst of a large and united English family, and in his half-speculative, half-emotional way, was contrasting what he saw with the experience of an only son, when he was suddenly taken ill. The long continuous strain of the past months had been too much for him, and indeed it appears that even in the early spring he had been physically below par.[164] The illness is described by Mr. Tayler as a sort of brain fever, and he was disabled by it for more than a month. The Taylers nursed him as they would have nursed a son of their own, and Maxwell, in whom the smallest kindnesses awakened lasting gratitude, was profoundly moved by this. He referred to it long afterwards as having given him a new perception of the Love of God. One of his strongest convictions thenceforward was that “Love abideth, though Knowledge vanish away.” And this came to him at the very height of the intellectual struggle.[165]

The father was also much affected by this kindness shown to his son. Mr. Tayler had said nothing to make him anxious until the crisis of the illness was past. But when he knows all, there is something more than eloquence in his brief, inarticulate phrases of recognition:—

“With yours I have Mr. Tayler’s letter. I do not write to him to-day. My only subject is thanks, and these are not to be measured in words—the strongest I can use; so at present give my respects and highest regards.”

Though weakened by his illness, Maxwell was able to keep the vacation term, and profit by Hopkins’ continued training, before going home for a few weeks of thorough refreshment. In the following term, with the Senate-House examination in immediate prospect, he was careful not to read inordinately hard.

In the autumn of this year the controversy which had been called forth by Professor Maurice’s Theological Essays was brought to a crisis through his deprivation of his office by Principal Jelf. Disputation on this theme was nowhere more rife than amongst the scholars of Trinity, and Maxwell’s remarks upon it will be read with interest even now. He was from the first strongly attracted by Maurice’s combination of intense Christian earnestness with universal sympathy, and although he sometimes felt that the new teacher was apt to travesty the Popular Theology in trying to delineate it, he had a deep respect for what was positive in his doctrine. He was still more drawn to him when he came to know him personally,—no longer as a writer, but as a friend. A mention of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen in Mr. Maxwell’s letter of 16th December 1853, was probably occasioned by some question raised in connection with Mr. Maurice.

The following letter, addressed to me by the Rev. G. W. H. Tayler, will be read with interest in the light of the preceding narrative:—

Holy Trinity Vicarage,

Carlisle, 4th March 1882.

My dear Sir—You have asked me to send you some account of James Maxwell, as I remember him during the space of three years, 1852, 1853, and 1854. My first acquaintance with him was about February 1852. I was soon attracted by the frankness of his manner and the singular charm of his quaint and original remarks in conversation.

We undergraduates felt we had a very uncommon personage amongst us; but we did not then appreciate his rare powers. We had of course heard of the reputation which he had at Edinburgh.

But this acute mathematician, so addicted even then to original research, was among his friends simply the most genial and amusing of companions, the propounder of many a strange theory, the composer of not a few poetic jeux d’esprits.

Grave and hard-reading students shook their heads at his discursive talk and reading, and hinted that this kind of pursuits would never pay in the long run in the Mathematical Tripos.

I have sometimes watched his countenance in the lecture-room. It was quite a study—there was the look of a bright intellect, an entire concentration on the subject, and sometimes a slight smile on the fine expressive mouth, as some point came out clearly before him, or some amusing fancy flitted across his imagination. He used to profess a dislike to reproducing speculations from books, or hearing opinions quoted taken bodily from books.

Yet he read a good deal in other lines of study than natural philosophy. Sir Thomas Brown’s Religio Medici was one of his favourite books. Any such author, who propounded his speculations in a quaint, original manner was sure to be a favourite with him.

But I particularly remember his attraction to Sir Thomas Brown during the long vacation, when he was laid up with severe illness (a brain fever) in my dear uncle’s house in June 1853. He came to stay at Otley, near Ipswich, of which my uncle was the rector. For a few days he was tolerably well, then suddenly fell ill, probably through overwork for his third year college examination. It was on his recovery from that illness that I seemed to know him better than ever. It was then that my uncle’s conversation seemed to make such a deep impression on his mind. He had always been a regular attendant at the services of God’s house, and a regular communicant in our College Chapel. Also he had thought and read much on religious subjects. But at this time (as it appears from his own account of the matter) his religious views were greatly deepened and strengthened.

I must add that I spent some little time in the long vacation of 1854 with Maxwell at Glenlair. His father was then living, and it was touching to witness the perfect affection and confidence which subsisted between father and son: the joy and satisfaction and exulting pride which the father evidently felt in his son’s success and well-earned fame; and, on the other hand, the tender, thoughtful care and watchfulness which James Maxwell manifested towards his father.

Maxwell has indeed left a very bright memory and example. “We, his contemporaries at college, have seen in him high powers of mind and great capacity and original views, conjoined with deep humility before his God, reverent submission to His will, and hearty belief in the love and the atonement of that Divine Saviour who was his Portion and Comforter in trouble and sickness, and his exceeding great reward.—I remain, my dear sir, yours very truly,

G. W. H. Tayler, Vicar of Trinity Church, Carlisle.

Mr. Lawson of the Equity Bar, whose diary has preserved the remark quoted on p. 133, has also furnished me with the following vivid account of his impressions of Maxwell as an undergraduate:—

22 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C., 6th January 1882.

I was in his year at Trinity, and knew him intimately, though our ways separated after I left Cambridge, and I scarcely ever saw him, except once or twice when he was Professor at King’s College, and later on only at very long intervals, on an occasional visit to the University.

There must be many of his quaint verses about, if one could lay hands on them, for Maxwell was constantly producing something of the sort, and bringing it round to his friends, with a sly chuckle at the humour, which, though his own, no one enjoyed more than himself.

I remember Maxwell coming to me one morning with a copy of verses beginning—“Gin a body meet a body Going through the air,” in which he had twisted the well-known song into a description of the laws of impact of solid bodies.

There was also a description which Maxwell wrote of some University ceremony, I forget what, in which somebody “went before,” and somebody “followed after,” and “in the midst were the wranglers playing with the symbols.”

These last words, however meant, were in fact a description of his own wonderful power. I remember one day in lecture, our lecturer had filled the black board three times with the investigation of some hard problem in Geometry of Three Dimensions, and was not at the end of it, when Maxwell came up with a question whether it would not come out geometrically, and showed how with a figure, and in a few lines, there was the solution at once.[166]

Maxwell was, I daresay you remember, very fond of a talk upon almost anything. He and I were pupils (at an enormous distance apart) of Hopkins, and I well recollect how, when I had been working the night before and all the morning at Hopkins's problems with little or no result, Maxwell would come in for a gossip, and talk on while I was wishing him far away, till at last, about half an hour or so before our meeting at Hopkins’s, he would say—“Well, I must go to old Hop’s problems;” and by the time we met there they were all done.

I remember Hopkins telling me, when speaking of Maxwell, either just before or just after his degree, “It is not possible for that man to think incorrectly on physical subjects;” and Hopkins, as you know, had had perhaps more experience of mathematical minds than any man of his time.

Of Maxwell’s geniality and kindness of heart you will have had many instances. Every one who knew him at Trinity can recall some kindness or some act of his which has left an ineffaceable impression of his goodness on the memory—for “good ” Maxwell was, in the best sense of the word.

Mr. Lawson adds the following extract from his diary:—

Under date January 1. 1854 (Sunday evening), after saying I had been at tea at a friend’s rooms, and naming the men who were there, of whom Maxwell was one, there is this note:—

“Maxwell, as usual, showing himself acquainted with every subject upon which the conversation turned. I never met a man like him. I do believe there is not a single subject on which he cannot talk, and talk well too, displaying always the most curious and out-of-the-way information.”

1854. Æt. 22.

The great contests of January came at last, with the result that Maxwell was Second Wrangler, Routh of Peterhouse being the Senior, and that Routh and Maxwell were declared equal as Smith’s Prizemen.

A reminiscence of Professor T. S. Baynes which has reference to this time is interesting in connection with other signs of something exceptional in Maxwell’s physical state during the previous year:—

He said that on entering the Senate-house for the first paper he felt his mind almost blank; but by and by his mental vision became preternaturally clear. And, on going out again, he was dizzy and staggering, and was some time in coming to himself.

Letters, 1852-53.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

8 King’s Parade, 10th Feb. 1852.

Æt. 20.

I was at Isaac Taylor’s to-night. His father has come to see him, a little, cold man, with a tremulous voice, who talks about the weather as if he were upon oath, but who can lift up his testimony against any unwarrantable statement. Taylor junr. and Maclennan were talking about associations of workmen, Christian socialism, and so forth. T. junr. approved of the system where each workman has a share in the firm. M. liked one master better than many.

T. senr. described the inducement to hard work among engineers at Manchester; the reward is not profit, but situation.

There are advantages in subordination, besides good direction, for it supplies an end to each man, external to himself. Activity requires Objectivity.—Do you ever read books written by women about women? I mean fictitious tales, illustrating Moral Anatomy, by disclosing all thoughts, motives, and secret sins, as if the authoress were a perjured confessor. There you find all the good thinking about themselves, and plotting self-improvement from a sincere regard to their own interest, while the bad are most disinterestedly plotting against or for others, as the case may be; but all are caged in and compelled to criticise one another till nothing is left, and you exclaim:—

No wonder people get hypochondriac if their souls are made to go through manœuvres before a mirror. Objectivity alone is favourable to the free circulation of the soul. But let the Object be real and not an Image of the mind’s own creating, for Idolatry is Subjectivity with respect to gods. Let a man feel that he is wide awake,—that he has something to do, which he has authority, power, and will to do, and is doing; but let him not cherish a consciousness of these things as if he had them at his command, but receive them thankfully and use them strenuously, and exchange them freely for other objects. He has then a happiness which may be increased in degree, but cannot be altered in kind.

To the Same.

8 King's Parade, 7th March 1852.

I have now nobody that I see too much of, though I have got several new acquaintances, and improved several old ones. I find nothing gives one greater inertia than knowing a good many men at a time, who do not know each other intimately. N.B.—Inertia, not = laziness, but mass; i.e. if one knows a man, he forms an idea of your character, and treats you accordingly. If one knows a company of men, they are strong in union, and overawe the individual. If one man only, we become mutual tyrants. If several independently, every one plays the part of Dr. Watt’s celebrated “Busy. Bee,” and by mixing according to every possible combination hit out the best results. Now you see I am theorising again and preaching as of old; but the fact is, I am always laying plans and preaching to myself till I seek for some one to whom I may disgorge without fear of an immediate reply. Now, my great plan, which was conceived of old, and quickens and kicks periodically, and is continually making itself more obtrusive, is a plan of Search and Recovery, or Revision and Correction, or Inquisition and Execution, etc. The Rule of the Plan is to let nothing be wilfully left unexamined. Nothing is to be holy ground consecrated to Stationary Faith, whether positive or negative. All fallow land is to be ploughed up, and a regular system of rotation followed. All creatures as agents or as patients are to be pressed into the service, which is never to be willingly suspended till nothing more remains to be done; i.e. till A.D. +. The part of the rule which respects self-improvement by means of others is:—Never hide anything, be it weed or no, nor seem to wish it hidden. So shall all men passing by pluck up the weeds and brandish them in your face, or at least display them for your inspection (especially if you make no secret of your intention to do likewise). (I speak not here literally of the case of those who revise each other’s faults every night, and quarrel before the month is out, but you did not so misunderstand me.) Again I assert the Right of Trespass on any plot of Holy Ground which any man has set apart (as the rustics did their Gude-man’s Rig) to the power of Darkness. Such places must be exorcised and desecrated till they become fruitful fields. Again, if the holder of such property refuse admission to the exorcist, he ipso facto admits that it is consecrated, and that he fears the power of Darkness. It may be that no such darkness really broods over the place, and that the man has got a habit of shutting his eyes in that field, which makes him think so.

How I am convinced that no one but a Christian can actually purge his land of these holy spots. Any one may profess that he has none, but something will sooner or later occur to every one to show him that part of his ground is not open to the public. Intrusions on this are resented, and so its existence is demonstrated. How, I do not say that no Christians have enclosed places of this sort. Many have a great deal, and every one has some. No one can be sure of all being open till all has been examined by competent persons, which is the work, as I said before, of eternity. But there are extensive and important tracts in the territory of the Scoffer, the Pantheist, the Quietist, Formalist, Dogmatist, Sensualist, and the rest, which are openly and solemnly Tabooed, as the Polynesians say, and are not to be spoken of without sacrilege.

Christianity—that is, the religion of the Bible—is the only scheme or form of belief which disavows any possessions on such a tenure. Here alone all is free. You may fly to the ends of the world and find no God but the Author of Salvation. You may search the Scriptures and not find a text to stop you in your explorations.

You may read all History and be compelled to wonder but not to doubt.

Compare the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the God of the Prophets and the God of the Apostles, and however the Pantheist may contrast the God of Nature with the “Dark Hebrew God,” you will find them much liker each other than either like his.

The Old Testament and the Mosaic Law and Judaism are commonly supposed to be “Tabooed” by the orthodox. Sceptics pretend to have read them, and have found certain witty objections and composed several transcendental arguments against Hebrew O’ Clo’,” which too many of the orthodox unread admit, and shut up the subject as haunted. But a Candle is coming to drive out all Ghosts and Bugbears. Let us all follow the Light.

To Miss Cay.

8 King’s Parade, 23d March 1852.

I received yours (of the 18th I suppose) on Saturday, and began to muse on the difference of our modes of life: your sickness—my health; your kind dealings with neighbours—our utter independence of each other; you visit without seeing people—we see without visiting each other; you hear all about people’s families and domestic concerns—we do not, but we know exactly how everybody is up in his different subjects, and what are his favourite pursuits for the time.

The Little-go is now going on, so I am taking my Easter vacation at this time. I do nothing but the papers in the Senate-house, and then spend the day in walks and company, reading books of a pleasant but not too light kind, lest I should be disgusted with recreation.

I find myself quite at grass, and am sure that in 10 days I will be reading again as if I had been rusticated for a year.

I never did such a feat as get up at 5 in the morning. I get up at 6.30 for chapel in winter, and read in the day-time, but I have now begun my summer practice of sleeping in the mornings and reading at night, save when I get up on a fine day to take a walk in the morning, which makes me idle all day, and is sometimes agreeable.

I met old Isaac Taylor in his son’s rooms some time ago. He began by speaking of the weather in a serious way, and went on to his Manchester concerns,—effective motives to work, actual methods adopted, and so got into the merits of socialism, joint-stock workmen’s associations, and so forth, appearing all the while to say nothing, but quietly feed on the wisdom of the undergrads., as they enounced their opinions.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 10th April 1852.

The Ordnance Surveyors are doing Contour Lines. The line 250 feet above sea-level passes just in front of the Bees.[167]

Glenlair, 25th April 1852.

I ... congratulate you on your scholarship. You write of entering on the duties,—what are they? and what are the Privileges and Profits?

Glenlair, 12th May 1852.

Is M'Millan the Publisher of the Cambridge and Dublin, whereof William Thomson is editor? Have you sent him your prop, you were doing at Christmastime?

The gold-fever of Australian type prevails in these parts.

Glenlair, 19th May 1852.

[Prop, about resistance of sides and bottom of a meal-ark.]

... The meal, which may be called a fluid as much as a glacier.[168]

Query: Whether by putting bars beneath the bottom at points removed from the middle of the joist, the pressure would be more advantageously distributed?

Glenlair, 12th June 1852.

[Eve of James C. M.’s 21st birthday.]

I trust you will be as discreet when major as you have been while minor (Prov. X. 1).

Remember me to Tait. I am sorry I did not see him in Edinburgh to wish him joy of his honours.

Glenlair, 29th June 1852.

Æt. 21.

Did you take to the Geology at all? I suppose that the cliffs at Lowestoft are Tertiary, with plenty of fossils.

Glenlair, 9th Novr. 1852.

Nativity of the Prince of Wales.

Received yours of St. Guy and William.

The Cambridge Commission as you report of it will not affect you in any way.

What sort of thing is “College Declamation”? You say you have chosen The Scottish Covenanters. Do you take the part of Advocate or Apologist for them? or do you try the impartial historian? It would be difficult to give the Scots Prelates their due without offending some of the Order. During the Persecutions both the civil and ecclesiastical government of Scotland was getting ripe for the Revolution.

Glenlair, 11th Novr. 1852.

It has been said, Had there been two other Leightons instead of Sharp of St. Andrews and —— —— of Galloway, Episcopacy would have been securely established.

Glenlair, 2d Feb. 1853.

Aunty Jane was saying—a glass of wine daily,—port for preference.

Glenlair, 12th Feb. 1853.

... Mathematical Journal, to which you send props. What props.? The one about the Pendulum?

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Trin. Coll., 20th Feb. 1853.

After Chapel I was at Litchfield’s, where he, Farrar, Pomeroy, and Blakiston, discussed eternal punishment from 8 to 12. Men fall into absurdity as soon as they have settled for themselves the question of the origin of evil. A man whose mind is “made up” on that subject is contradictory on every other; one day he says that the man that can be happy in such a world is a brute, and the next day that if a man is not happy here he is a moping fool. At last they assert the Cretan dilemma, that if a man says that man is ignorant and foolish, it was ignorant and foolish to say so. Solomon, they say, was used up when he wrote Ecclesiastes, and said “all is vanity” in a relative sense, having himself been so. Solomon describes the search after Happiness for its own sake and for the sake of possession. It is as if a strong man should collect into his house all the beauty of the world, and be condemned to look out of the window and marvel that no good thing was to be seen. “No man can eat his cake and have it.” I would add that what remains till to-morrow will stink.

As for evil being unripe good, I say nothing with respect to objective evil, except that it is a part of the universe which it may be the business of immortal man to search out for ever, and still see more beyond. We cannot understand it because it is relative, and relative to more than we know. But subjective evil is absolute; we are conscious of it as independent of external circumstances; its physical power is bounded by our finitude, bodily and mental, but within these its intensity is without measure. A bullet may be diverted from its course by the medium through which it passes, or it may take a wrong one owing to the unskilfulness of the shooter, or the intended victim may change his place; but all this depends, not on the will of the shooter, but on the ignorance of his mind, the weakness of his body, the resistance of inert matter, or the subsequent act of another agent; the bullet of the murderer may be turned aside to drive a nail, or what not, but his will is independent of all this, and may be judged at once without appeal.

From his Father.

Edinburgh, 21st February 1853.

The Halo and accompaniment of the 15th had been very curious. I never saw the appearance of Mock Suns.

Lord Cockburn went in plain dress to the fancy ball. When the crowd hissed him, he said he was the minister that was to marry them all!!

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 11th March 1853.

I was so much among the year that is now departed that it makes a great difference in my mode of life. I have been seeking among the other years for some one to keep me in order. It is easier to find instructive men than influential ones. I left off here last night to go to a man’s rooms where I met several others, who had gone a-prowling like me.... I have been reading Archdeacon Hare’s sermons, which are good.

Trin. Coll., Feast of St. Charles II.

Pomeroy’s mother and sister were up here lately. They used to be at Cheltenham. From them I learnt a good deal about the systematic and uncompromising mode of thinking and speaking which marks the great Irish Giant of Trinity. Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand prought[169] here yesterday about missions. He founded the Lady Margaret boat club at John’s, and got the boat to the head of the river. He was 2d Classic in 1831, and still he is too energetic for his curates to keep up with him in his own visitations about the South Pole. He made a great impression on the men here by his plainness of speech and absence of all cant, whether he spoke of the doctrines of Christianity or the history of Pitcairn’s Island. I have been reading various books, but few very entertaining. They are chiefly theories about things in general which take the fancies of men now-a-days. The only safe way to read them is to find out the facts first. With this precaution they are tolerably transparent. I have been attending Sir James Stephen’s lectures upon the causes of the first French Revolution. They are now done, so I look in upon Stokes’ dealing with light.

From his Father.

Edinburgh, 13th March 1853.

Ask Gedge to get you instructions to Brummagem workshops. View, if you can, armourers, gunmaking and gunproving—swordmaking and proving—Papier-maché and japanning—silver-plating by cementation and rolling—ditto, electrotype—Elkington’s Works—Brazier’s works, by founding and by striking up in dies—turning—spinning teapot bodies in white metal, etc.—making buttons of sorts, steel pens, needles, pins, and any sorts of small articles which are curiously done by subdivision of labour and by ingenious tools—glass of sorts is among the works of the place, and all kinds of foundry work—engine-making—tools and instruments (optical and philosophical) both coarse and fine. If you have had enough of the town lots of Birmingham, you could vary the recreation by viewing Kenilworth, Warwick, Leamington, Stratford-on-Avon, or suchlike.[170]

Glenlair, 29th April 1853.

You write (from King Edward’s School, Birmingham) about plans and visits. Freshman Tayler and two others innominate.

Glenlair, 12th May 1853.

What do you know of Henry Mackenzie? Do you find Frank to be clever, good, agreeable, and wise, which you state to be the desiderata for a friend?

Here is a Prop. anent fuel. What would be the amount of heat evolved in the combustion of a given weight of dry wood compared with the same weight of coal?

Glenlair, The Day after the Wedding,[171] 1st June(1853).

I have yours of the clay of the Restoration.... She (Maria Clerk) also wrote about the new phase of animal magnetism called table-Turning. Do you know about that?

Photography is also in the ascendant. You will, no doubt, be at Ipswich, I believe an ancient city, and hath old kirks and sundries worthy of notice. Is Otley towards the sea? Douking, etc.?

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 7th June 1853.

I have an engagement to go and visit a man in Suffolk, but the spare bed is at present occupied by the “celebrated Dr. Ting of America.” I only wait here for his departure. I spent to-day in a great sorting of papers and arranging of the same. Much is bequeathed to the bedmaker, and a number of duplicate examination papers are laid up to give to friends.

I intend to-morrow to get up early and make breakfast for all the men who are going down, wakening them in good time; then read Wordsworth’s Prelude till sleepy; then sally forth and see if all the colleges are shut up for the season; and then go and stroll in the fields and fraternise with the young frogs and old water-rats. In the evening, something not mathematical. Perhaps write a biographical sketch of Dr. Ting of America, of whom you know as much as I do. To-morrow evening, or next day, our list comes out. You will hear of it from the Robertsons if in town, or Mackenzie if not. I have done better papers than those of this examination; but if the examiners are not satisfied with them it is not my fault, for they are better than they have yet seen of mine. If any one asks how I am getting on in mathematics, say that I am busy arranging everything so as to be able to express all distinctly, so that examiners may be satisfied now and pupils edified hereafter. It is pleasant work and very strengthening, but not nearly finished.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 24th June 1853.

Æt. 22.

I have just received your letter and Mr. Tayler’s. You may be sure I am thankful to hear of your recovering, although not previously made anxious about the illness. I cannot but think of the fever fit you had in Edinburgh after an Academy exam., when we had settled to go to Melrose—that was in 1846.[172] Nothing can exceed the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Tayler, and I hope you will not need long nursing. If you are well and not much hindered, you can let me know more fully how you are getting on. Neither you nor Mr. Tayler mention the day you were taken ill. Mr. T.’s letter is dated 22d.

Glenlair, 28th June 1853.

I am most thankful and happy to hear of your convalescence through Mr. Tayler’s most kind and daily bulletins. I know not how sufficiently to thank Mr. and Mrs. Tayler for their very great kindness. I think you may be best to come home, when fit to travel, for further recreation.

Glenlair, 1st July 1853.

Mr. Tayler says, both truly and kindly, “You must be his guest till you are fit to travel.” ...

With yours I have Mr. Tayler’s letter of 28th. I do not write to him to-day. My only subject is thanks, and these are not to be measured in words—the strongest that I can use; so at present give my respects and highest regards.

To the Key. C. B. Tayler.

Trin. Coll., 8th July 1858. Evening Post.

My dear Friend—Your letter was handed to me by the postman as I was taking a walk after morning chapel. As I was engaged then, I thought I might wait till the evening. I breakfasted with Macmillan the publisher, who has a man called Alexander Smith with him, who published a volume of poems in the beginning of the year which have been much read here, and, indeed, everywhere, for 3000 copies have been sold already. He is a designer of patterns for needlework, and he refuses to be made celebrated or to leave his trade. He speaks strong Glasgow, but without affectation, and is well-informed without the pretence of education, commonly so called. People would not expect from such a man a book in which the author seems to transfer all his own states of mind to the objects he sees. But he is young and may get wiser as he gets older. He sees and can tell of the beauty of things, but he connects them artificially. He may come to prefer the real and natural connection, and after that he may perhaps stir us all up by bringing before us real human objects of interest he has only dimly seen in the solitude of his youth.

I told you how I meant to go to Hopkins. He was not in. I had a talk with him on Sunday; he recommended light work for a while, and afterwards he would give me an opportunity of making up what I had lost by absence. Yesterday I did a paper of his on the Differential Calculus without fatigue, and as well as usual. Ask George how Mr. Hughes has arranged about Examinations. I will write to him soon, and send him a mass of papers in an open packet, to be taken twice a week, or not so often.

You dimly allude to the process of spoiling which has gone on during the last 2 years. I admit that people have been kind to me, and also that I have seen more variety than in other years; but I maintain that all the evil influences that I can trace have been internal and not external, you know what I mean—that I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me, and that if I escape, it is only by God’s grace helping me to get rid of myself, partially in science, more completely in society,—but not perfectly except by committing myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time. Nevertheless, you see things from the outside directly, and I only by reflexion, so I hope that you will not tell me you have little fault to find with me, without finding that little and communicating it.

In the Athenæum of the 2d there is Faraday’s account of his experiments on Table-turning, proving mechanically that the table is moved by the unconscious pressure of the fingers of the people wishing it to move, and proving besides that Table-turners may be honest. The consequence has been that letters are being written to Faraday boastfully demanding explanations of this, that, and the other thing, as if Faraday had made a proclamation of Omniscience. Such is the fate of men who make real experiments in the popular occult sciences,—a fate very easy to be borne in silence and confidence by those who do not depend on popular opinion, or learned opinion either, but on the observation of Facts in rational combination. Our anti-scientific men here triumph over Faraday.

I hope the Rectory has flourished during the absence of you and Mrs. Tayler. I had got into habits with you of expecting things to happen, and if I wake at night I think the gruel is coming.

Macmillan was talking to me to-day about elementary books of natural science, and he had found the deficiency, but had a good report of “Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest,” which I spoke of with you. When I am settled I will put down some first principles and practicable experiments on Light for Charlie, who is to write to me and answer questions proposed; but this in good time.—Your affectionate friend,

J. C. Maxwell.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Trin. Coll., 14th July 1853.

You wrote just in time for your letter to reach me as I reached Cambridge. After examination I went to visit the Rev. C. B. Tayler (uncle to a Tayler whom I think you have seen under the name of Freshman, etc., and author of many tracts and other didactic works). We had little expedites, and walks, and things parochial and educational, and domesticity. I intended to return on the 18th June, but on the 17th I felt unwell, and took measures accordingly to be well again—i.e. went to bed, and made up my mind to recover. But it lasted more than a fortnight, during which time I was taken care of beyond expectation (not that I did not expect much before). When I was perfectly useless, and could not sit up without fainting, Mr. Tayler did everything for me in such a way that I had no fear of giving trouble. So did Mrs. Tayler; and the two nephews did all they could. So they kept me in great happiness all the time, and detained me till I was able to walk about, and got back strength. I returned on the 4th July.

The consequence of all this is that I correspond with Mr. Tayler, and have entered into bonds with the nephews, of all of whom more hereafter. Since I came here I have been attending Hop., but with his approval did not begin full swing. I am getting on, though, and the work is not grinding on the prepared brain.

I have been reading Villette by Currer Bell alias Miss Bronte. I think the authoress of Jane Eyre has not ceased to think and acquire principles since that work left her hands.

It is autobiographic in form. The ego is a personage of great self-knowledge and self-restraint, strength of principle and courage when roused, otherwise preferring the station of an onlooker.

Then there is an excellent prying, upright, Jesuitical, and successful French school directress; a fiery, finical, physiognomic professor, priestridden, but taking his own way in benevolence as in other things, etc. etc.

Faraday’s experiments on Table-turning, and the answers of provoked believers and the state of opinion generally, show what the state of the public mind is with respect to the principles of natural science. The law of gravitation and the wonderful effects of the electric fluid are things which you can ascertain by asking any man or woman not deprived by penury or exclusiveness of ordinary information. But they believe them just as they believe history, because it is in books and is not doubted. So that facts in natural science are believed on account of the number of witnesses, as they ought! I believe that tables are turned; yea! and by an unknown force called, if you please, the vital force, acting, as believers say, thro’ the fingers. But how does it affect the table? By the mechanical action of the sideward pressure of the fingers in the direction the table ought to go, as Faraday has shown. At this last statement the Turners recoil.

To R. B. Litchfield, Esq.

Coniston, 23d August 1853.

I came here with Campbell of Trin. Hall to meet his brother and another Oxford man called Christie.[173] We are all in a house[174] just above the lake, recreating ourselves and reading a little. Pomeroy is off to Ireland. I have seen a good deal of him, and we have read “at the same time successively” Vestiges of Creation and Maurice’s Theological Essays. Both have excited thought and talk.... I was down after the Mug[175] with Tayler’s uncle in Suffolk, and was taken in there. I was there made acquainted with the peculiar constitution of a well-regulated family, consisting entirely of nephews and nieces, and educated entirely by the uncle and aunt. There was plenty of willing obedience, but little diligence: much mutual trust, and little self-reliance. They did not strike out for themselves in different lines, according to age, sex, and disposition, but each so excessively sympathised (bonâ fide, of course) with the rest, that one could not be surprised at hearing any one take part in criticising his own action.

In such a case some would recommend “a little whole—some neglect.” I would suggest something like the scheme of self-emancipation for slaves. Let each member of the family be allowed some little province of thought, work, or study, which is not to be too much enquired into or sympathised with or encouraged by the rest, and let the limits of this be enlarged till he has a wide, free field of independent action, which increases the resources of the family so much the more as it is peculiarly his own.

I see daily more and more reason to believe that the study of the “dark sciences” is one which will repay investigation. I think that what is called the proneness to superstition in the present day is much more significant than some make it. The prevalence of a misdirected tendency proves the misdirection of a prevalent tendency. It is the nature and object of this tendency that calls for examination.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Glenlair, 15th September 1853.

I see that Principal Jelf is going to “have up” Maurice for heresy published in his Theological Essays. The consequence will probably be that some others unconnected with Maurice will be set upon, and will perhaps join with him in self-defence, or at least be associated with him in popular opinion.

If the row becomes general it will be the controversy of the day. They have no firm and dogmatic statements to grapple with, but they will soon make them. All the ordinary disputes have been revivals of the letter of old contests. Here we have the very spirit of all reformations; an attempt must be made to find what is requisite to a Christian system, and whether the “variables” of such a system ought to remain constant, as they were at some arbitrary epoch (that of sect-founders, Fathers, General Councils, Reformers, etc.), and not rather to be trusted to the true and approved Christians of every age.

But he that is misty let him be misty still, and the same for him that is shallow; but let him that is active not mar his activity by “tearing his neighbours in their slime,” or by ascending into the thick mist and walking with “Death and Morning on the silver horns.”

From His Father.

Glenlair, 10th October 1853.

I have set up the rain-gauge in the middle of the garden at the crossing of the gooseberry bushes at the Camomile. I think it will do.

As to changing your rooms—I suppose from that, you have settled to continue for a time at Cambridge and to look out for a fellowship.

Glenlair, 28th October 1853.

Be sure to keep a long way within your powers of working, and then you may do well whatever you undertake.

Glenlair, 13th November 1853.

Your letter was chiefly a dissertation on the election of Examinators; the names were all strange to me, except our old friend Charles Mackenzie.

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 12th November 1853.

I am in a regular state of health though not a very regular state of reading, for I hold that it is a pernicious practice to read when one is not inclined for it. So I read occasionally for a week and then miss a few days, always remembering to do whatsoever College and Hopkins prescribe to be done, and avoiding anything more. Allan Stewart was up a week ago to be made a bye Fellow of Peterhouse, so you may congratulate him when you see him. He is to be in Edinburgh this winter. Frank Mackenzie is up, and seems pretty well. He tells me that he does not sit up late; but as I have not the management of his candles I do not know what that means with him. I have not been up after twelve for a long time except on Saturdays when I am not reading.... You will have heard how the Council of King’s College have sat upon Professor Maurice and intend to turn him out of the college. So there are pamphlets and replies on the meaning of the word “Eternal,” and broadsides of the Record on the side of the attack. I see that the Rev. Berkeley Addison is in trouble about the Scottish Reformation Society, for associating with non-episcopal clergymen.

To Lewis Campbell, Esq.

Trin. Coll., 3d Dec. 1853.

... We have the usual amount of discussion here on labour parliaments, multiplicity of votes, Eternity and Maurice and Jelf, or the contest between those who think that there is a real depth to which thought must go, though words cannot well follow it, and those who maintain that which is not obvious to a man of sense, cannot be really connected with a religion which is not confined to deep thinkers, but professes to afford the highest principles to the simple. That is what most men discuss. Maurice has settled it for himself, believing that the things of which he treats do actually form the necessary thoughts of all men whether learned or no.

From his Father.

Glenlair, 16th December 1853.

I knew Thomas Erskine of Linlathen very well long ago. He and his mother and sisters lived in No. 30 Heriot Row. He came to the Bar in Edinburgh the year before me. He is related to George Dundas, and Stirlings, and Erskines, and many families we visited. For long he has lived at Linlathen, near Dundee, and is author of various religious books.

Your dissertation on the parties in the Church of England goes far beyond my knowledge. I would need an explanatory lecture first, and before I can follow the High, Broad, and Low, through their ramifications.

Penicuik, 30th December 1853.

You will need to get muffetees for the Senate-Room. Take your plaid or rug to wrap round your feet and legs.

To Miss Cay.

Trin. Coll., 13th January 1854.

All my correspondents have been writing to me, which is kind, and have not been writing questions, which is kinder. So I answer you now, while I am slacking speed to get up steam, leaving Lewis and Stewart, etc., till next week, when I will give an account of the five days. There are a good many up here at present, and we get on very jolly on the whole, but some are not well, and some are going to be plucked or gulphed, as the case may be, and others are reading so hard that they are invisible. I go to-morrow to breakfast with shaky men, and after food I am to go and hear the list read out, and whether they are through, and bring them word. When the honour list comes out the poll-men act as messengers. Bob Campbell comes in occasionally of an evening now, to discuss matters and vary sports. During examination I have had men at night working with gutta-percha, magnets, etc. It is much better than reading novels or talking after 5½ hours’ hard writing.

Hunter is up here all the vacation. Do you know anything of him in Edinburgh? His father, who is dead, or his uncle, were known in Edinburgh, but I am not up in that subject. The present man is a freshman at Queen’s, and is a thundering mathematician, is well informed on political, literary, and speculative subjects, and is withal a jolly sort of fellow with some human nature at the bottom, and lots of good humour all through. He does not talk much, and when he does it is broad Scotch and to the purpose. I hope to see more of him next term. Old Charlie Robertson is in better case I think than usual, and rejoices in the good opinion of several men whose opinion is most worth having. He has become better known and better estimated of late, especially since Sandy[176] came up. He did pretty well in the three days, and does not fret about anything. The snow here is nearly gone, and it looks like frost again. I have never missed a long tramp through the slush day by day. When one is well soaked in a snow wreath, cleaned and dried, and put beside a good fire, with bread and butter and problems, one can eat and grind like a miller.... I have been reading a book of poems called Benoni, by Arthur Munby of Trinity, which are above the common run of such things (not Lorenzo Benoni, illustrated by J. R, which I have seen but not read). Have you seen the Black Brothers, a small book of Ruskin’s, illustrated by Doyle;—a good child’s book, which big people ought to read.

From His Father.

18 India St., 80th January 1854.

I heartily congratulate you on your place in the list. I suppose it is higher than the speculators would have guessed, and quite as high as Hopkins reckoned on. I wish you success in the Smith’s Prizes; be sure to write me the result. I will see Mrs. Morrieson, and I think I will call on Dr. Gloag to congratulate him. He has at least three pupils gaining honours.

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